CBS Sells Stake In Tri-Star Inc.

By The Associated Press

Published: November 16, 1985

CBS Inc. sold its interest in Tri-Star Pictures Inc. for about $48 million yesterday, withdrawing from a venture into the production and distribution of theatrical films that it entered just three years ago. Tri-Star distributed such popular films as ''Rambo First Blood: Part II'' and ''The Muppets Take Manhattan,'' but was never a financial success for CBS.

CBS received $7.75 a share from the sale of its 6.25 million shares and expects another $1 a share in compensation by an affiliate of Columbia Pictures Industries, one of its partners in Tri-Star, according to Leslie H. Jacobson, Tri-Star's general counsel. CBS should make about $53 million from the sale after accounting for the money from Columbia and paying 25 cents a share as a selling fee to Allen & Company, she said. A Tri-Star spokesman said advance speculation that CBS's portion of Tri-Star would be sold to an investor group was wrong.